


Green Trick

by Okastic



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Feelings Realization, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love, i like seeing my faves suffer, just fulfilling my own desire for misery porn and gratuitous use of flower meanings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 10:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18092738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okastic/pseuds/Okastic
Summary: “The heart was made to be broken.”Shin finds a bitter truth and solace within these lost pre-Golden Age words.





	Green Trick

**Author's Note:**

> An AU separate from my other work to indulge in my obsession with flower languages.  
> Also Shin is an idiot who falls fast and hard, so his symptoms are accelerated.

He doesn’t know when it starts. Getting involved with the Drifter and his ill sought activities naturally spells disaster for most, even the Man with the Golden Gun. Being a legend in the flesh does nothing to save him from the weight of the new misery he bears. 

Falling in love fucking sucks.

Especially when there’s no chance that the other person feels the same. The Drifter is loyal to no one but himself. Reason goes that his heart will never belong to another. 

He doesn’t know when he caught feelings for the Tower’s resident shady mote dealer, but he knows when the realization kicked in. Which was now, while he’s lying on the Drifter’s shitty cot. The sweat still fresh on his skin after a round of sex. 

Drifter left to grab something to eat a few minutes ago, leaving Shin to wallow in his self loathing over the fact that he fell for literally the least eligible bachelor this side of the planetary system. Shin curls up under a pile of a blankets to ward off the chill of the icy biome within the Derelict’s inner sanctum. The man could afford much better sleeping conditions but insisted that what he had was all he needed. Shin disagrees. He burned the sorry sack that was the Drifter’s sleeping bag once it became clear that he would end up in Drifter’s bed on the semi-regular basis. Of course, he replaced it with a set of heavy blankets, the same ones he's swaddled himself in. He's not that much of an ass. 

Shin huffs a sigh into the pillow. It smells of their combined scents, a mixture of gunpowder, pine, and an unidentifiable musk. He breathes it in taking small comfort in the familiarity. Sleep crawls up the edges of his mind, and Shin resigns to sinking into unconsciousness. Maybe when he wakes up the feelings will be gone, a fleeting fancy in his long, drawn out existence. 

Indeed, he pays his budding feelings no mind when he jerks awake. Panic floods his mind instead. He coughs and gasps, but his lungs can’t take in an air. Shin’s head spins as he struggles to sit up. The edges of his vision blurs and darkens as the lack of air threatens to drag him back into unconsciousness.

His voice comes out reedy and thin as he tries to call for help. Drifter still is nowhere in sight. He’s glad that the rogue Lightbearer isn’t there to witness the sudden onset of illness. In the back of his mind, Shin knows that his Ghost can revive him if he does end up suffocating to death, but that doesn’t take away from the awful experience. 

His chest constricts forcing out more coughs. They’re choked off breathless things that wrack his body. Something rises up from his throat, and he lets whatever it is spill from his mouth onto his lap. The tightness loosens up in his chest. The relief that follows is dizzying as air floods back into his lungs. 

The waves of pain recede, and eventually his breathing goes back to normal. Shin squeezes his eyes close. He wipes away some of the tears that cling to his lashes on the back of his hands and takes even, meditative breaths to soothe his shaken nerves. He remembers getting sick when he was young, before he took up the mantle of Jaren Ward and became a Lightbearer. Mostly quick and violent things that burned through him. He hasn’t been sick since. Guardians don’t get sick. The Light heals through all physical wounds and illnesses, so the question remains of what the fuck just happened to him. 

He sees a whole lot of green when he wills himself to open his eyes. He stares at the mess of strange looking plants, flowers, on his lap and isn’t quite sure what to make of them. They don’t look like any plants he’s ever come across before, all various shades of green. They’re beautiful, vibrant, and inexplicably remind him of Drifter beyond their color.

Pain seizes through him again. His lungs burn as another coughing fit takes over. It’s mild in comparison to what he woke up with, but the fresh green puff ball that he coughs up sets off another round of alarms in his head. Oh God, he’s coughing these things up like a human vending machine. 

He’s no doctor. No botanist. His skill set encompasses the likes of combat, subjufuge, and tracking, nothing which helps in his current situation. It might have been a literal age ago when he last felt this lost. 

Shin struggles out of bed to stand on shaky legs. His Ghost appears spinning and flaring his fins in concern looking like he wants to say something but chose to remain silent and transmat Shin’s gear on for him without prompt. The armor helps him feel more like himself.    

The flowers still lay scattered across the cot. Before he can decide what to do with them, he hears crunching in the nearby snow. Fuck it. He can’t let Drifter see this mess, not before he figures out what’s going on. Shin gathers up the handful or so of mystery vegetation and shoves them into one of the empty pouches on his belt. 

“Oh hey you’re up.”

He turns to look at Drifter in the doorway keeping his posture relaxed.

The Drifter quirks an eyebrow at the lack of response, “Uh, got some bean juice going if you want to grab a cup before you go. Quality stuff, I promise you that.”

Shin fights down the burn in his throat to scoff, “Knowing you, you probably made it with Vex milk. I’ll pass.” He shoulders his way past the other man out into the snow. Drifter doesn’t miss the opportunity to give him a slap on the ass. Shin bats his hand away before he can go back in for a squeeze. 

“Your lost, partner. Be seein’ you later, right?”

That’s a much more loaded question than the Drifter could know. It’s become routine how he makes his way back to the Drifter’s company between his missions and other obligations. But he needs answers, and he knows he won’t find them here. He lets out a noncommittal grunt and heads off to the transmat zone, feeling the Drifter’s gaze on his back along the way.

Omake:

Drifter leans against the doorframe of his sleeping area as he watches Shin stalk off, a bit miffed by his huffy nature. Once Shin cut around a corner and disappeared from view, Drifter turns back into the room. He rummages around looking for a datapad he’d tossed aside. 

He finds a corner of it sticking out from under his bed and bends to pick it up. Next to it lay a single green carnation. He examines it in the light of a lamp twirling the short stalk between his fingers. 

Curious. He didn’t know if Shin meant to leave the flower behind. He finds it hard to imagine Shin running around with something so objectively useless. Regardless, finders. Keepers. Guess this is his for the keeping now. 

**Author's Note:**

> carnations: applicable to all colors, love and fascination  
> green carnations: taken from the author Oscar Wilde, embodiment of decadence, the unnatural, and "unnatural love" aka homosexuality (the 19th c. was a different time)
> 
> I'm crying cause I've started three different fics and haven't finished any of them.


End file.
